1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an inlay station with alignment assemblies and inlay tubes, and more particularly pertains to an inlay station with alignment assemblies and transfer tubes which provide for the precise location and alignment of front curve (FC) and back curve (BC) molds in pallets after their transfer from an injection molding machine (IMM) machine on an assembly line in a high speed automated commercial production operation.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In a typical prior art soft contact lens manufacturing process, metal inserts are used in an injection molding machine (IMM) in an injection molding process to produce many thermoplastic injection molded front curve (FC) molds and back or base curve (BC) molds, each of which FC and BC molds is subsequently used only once to mold a single soft hydrogel contact lens. In this process, the thermoplastic FC and BC mold halves are subsequently joined in the course of the soft contact lens production process to form a mold cavity. The mold cavity formed by the injection molded FC and BC molds is then filled with monomer which is polymerized to form a lens, which is then removed from the mold and further processed to yield the final soft hydrogel lens product. The FC and BC molds may be manufactured from any thermoplastic material which is capable of being injection molded and which provides the final cast lens with the required optical properties, with preferred materials for mold frames being polystyrene and polypropylene. To injection mold the FC and BC molds, metal tool inserts of the required configuration are machined and mounted in the injection molding machine. The injection molded FC and BC molds are exact inverse reproductions of the metal mold inserts, and the resultant molded contact lenses are exact reproductions of the metal mold inserts.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an inlay station with alignment assemblies and transfer tubes which provide for the precise location and alignment of the FC and BC molds in pallets after their transfer from an injection molding machine (IMM) machine on an assembly line in a high speed automated commercial production operation.